


Deal With the Devil, Dance With the Devil

by barricadeofmedusa



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 06:00:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/barricadeofmedusa/pseuds/barricadeofmedusa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock makes a deal. Then, he meets John.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Deal With the Devil, Dance With the Devil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WingsUnfurled](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WingsUnfurled/gifts).



> So, this was the demonlock I started writing for wingsunfurled's Viclockian Secret Santa fic which I couldn't finish in time. I'm still going to finish it. It just might take a while...

31st December 2010.

The worst thing about this war isn’t the death and destruction. It isn’t the fear. It isn’t even the sand. It’s the silence. John Watson is beginning to think _nothing_ is alive in the Afghan desert though he knows it’s far from the truth. Soldiers and armies aside, there are the plants and lizards and snakes. Despite the sand, water exists.

John’s seen enough of death. Whether they fade slowly or go screaming, death is the same to him. He’s not afraid. Not anymore. It’s almost clinical. John Watson has two roles to play where Death is concerned. As the medic, he’ll note down the time and send the paperwork off for processing. Maybe take a moment of silence if he has the time to spare. As the soldier, he shoots to kill and doesn’t reflect until the conflict is well over and he lies awake in whatever is passing for a bed that night. And even then, he doesn’t dwell. He can’t do and stay sane.

The silence though, the silence itches at John and makes him jumpy. Silence means an overwhelming nothingness of anticipation. It means there are sounds you’ve grown so accustomed to, they’ve slipped beneath your guard and are creeping up on you without your notice. Silence is a deadly unknown and John Watson does not like being twitchy.

 New Years Eve in Kandahar and silence reigns. The atmosphere is tense; everyone waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop.

And then it happens.

Fireworks.

No. Firefights.

Time is fluid when there are gunshots all around you. Some moments stretch, others slip. Yet more escape without you even realising. John has no idea how long this fight has lasted.

But suddenly, there’s a pain in his left shoulder.

It takes his brain a moment to catch up and then-

_Fuck, my arm._

The pain explodes. It burns hot until the numbness sets in. He can no longer feel his fingers.

The fight continues around him.

John staunches the wound with one hand and huddles as far into his meagre shelter as he can.

It’s hit the Axillary artery. He’s losing too much blood. He prays fervently for the skirmish to end quickly.

_Please God let me live._

God doesn’t answer.

* * *

 

Thousands of miles away.  Central London.

It is quiet.

_No_ , Sherlock thinks. _It is not_.

London is never quiet, not even when she sleeps. The city, sleeping, holds a silence of anticipation. There’s the faint traffic, the buses running the last few passengers home, the rumble of trains and the air rushing through the Underground and the low buzz off the streetlights and shop windows to say nothing of the Christmas decorations strung across every street. London at night gives a quiet sigh, relaxing from the press of people in the day. You can hear the slow chug of the Thames and the heartbeat of Big Ben.

Tonight though, there will be no sleeping silence. From where he stands, Sherlock can pick out the raucous chattering, the clinking of beer bottles, the complaining in long queues outside clubs and the television sets turned up to full because everyone knows the neighbours are also awake and watching the same programme. Everywhere, mindless humans gathering in their hoards, drinking themselves into oblivion and calling it socially acceptable. There’s an intake of air, a held breath, everyone waiting for the first sign of fireworks. Waiting for the clocks to hit 00:00. Reset. He can almost hear the heavy cogs of their minds click in unison, thinking up resolutions they know they’ll break but have to make anyway. In the name of _tradition_.

Sherlock has never understood the hype – why one day in the calendar year is treated with such aplomb when all it marks is the binning of one piece of paper in favour of a newer one. The clocks tick on regardless. The days are the same regardless of the year you file them away as. One follows the other and that is all. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembers seasons but doesn’t direct much attention to the thought and it passes, slipping beneath the cross-examination of data from a mould experiment.

Sherlock is bored. Bored and maybe a little high, but it’s the bored that’s brought him here to St Barts. A few weeks ago, tripping almost entirely out of his mind, he had wormed his way up and out onto the roof and just lay there, staring up at the sky and just letting his mind slip every which way it wanted to. A perfect moment. And here he is again, only without his brain pooling around his feet.

Sherlock Holmes stands on the edge of the roof of St Barts, staring down at the city beneath his feet. And he laughs.

It wavers – or he does – seeming at once a long way down and too close for comfort. He wants to jump. He wants to know how far one can fall before they fly. He wants to know if you can fly at all or if that’s but a pipedream. Dream or no, this is what Sherlock will remember later: this is where it begins.

He won’t remember what substances he took in the hours beforehand, or the faces of those he pinched them off. He won’t remember much of the year previous at that, except to note it as experimentation. Of every kind. Sherlock will remember the dizzying moments and the resulting ludicrous ideas because they seem pertinent – the result of heavy testing. He will remember every needle that bit into his skin, and every reaction. He won’t remember the two weeks in May he spent passed out and subsequently hospitalised. He will remember yelling at Mycroft about it – or at least until he deletes it. He wonders if maybe it’d be possible to delete his whole life from his brain. How far would it take him? What would he be without memories? What would he be without life? This is why Sherlock stands on the edge, a man and his mind, contemplating the existence of mortality.

 

It was dull. Everything was dull.  He spreads his arms, as if to fly. And then he hears it. Not a physical sound, but a soft whoosh nonetheless, as if the air which had once occupied a space behind him had suddenly disappeared or simply ceased to be. As if a body had just slipped out of the shadows and suddenly had always been there, living, but not breathing.

"You’ve broken the rules of your kind. I didn’t summon you."

"But you're so interesting. I couldn't help myself." The demon smirks.

Silence.

A frown.

"Going to jump before we have our little chat? _Rude_.”

Sherlock turns to face the voice. The turn doesn't do well for his head. Movement turns everything into a stripe of colour splashed across the deep canvas of the sky. He blinks and waits for his vision to settle but every slight shift of his head sets off the sparks again. He stares through it, pulling sense from what he knows should be there until it solidifies.

"Death is not important to me."

"Oh you humans are all the same, aren't you? So scared of death that you won't admit it. But it will come, Sherlock. Just as you fall, you'll hear it. That little voice in the back of your head - 'I don't want to go'. Humans come into this world kicking and screaming. And you leave that way too."

"I may be human, _Moriarty_ , but don't think for a second that I'm like any of them, with their…miniscule little minds."

Moriarty flinches at the name but grins. "Oh dear. Hit a nerve, did I? You humans are always so sensitive."

Sherlock glares. After a few moments, Moriarty looks away and chuckles. He turns back around and his eyes are completely black.

"Let's play a game, dear Sherlock. A little wager, if you will. And all you have to do...is say yes."


End file.
